Armando Crispino
L'Etrusco Uccide Ancora

The Italian ‘70s giallo was not just Dario Argento, as many know, but saw a considerable number of directors, from diverse backgrounds and settings, engaging with a subgenre, or rather a language, that ensured maximum expressive freedom in the choice of locations, in photography, in the creation of real atmospheres, perhaps leaving actor direction in the background and, notably, making the employment of big names secondary, in favor of character actors, young debutants, or secondary figures, without significant additional costs for the production companies.

Maximum expressive freedom and low cost for excellent box office returns were the factors that made this cinema particularly widespread, almost a signature of an era.

"The Etruscan Kills Again" ('72) by Armando Crispino (b. 1924), a film not too well-known except among genre enthusiasts (so much so that you don't even see the Italian poster of the film here), well represents the aforementioned trend, besides being an entirely respectable product, even foreshadowing certain trends in the giallo/thriller cinema of subsequent years and, therefore, a model for many filmmakers of the time.

The film, in fact, blends supernatural and rational elements, is well immersed in Italian reality thanks to a dense reference to our national history, characterized by a rudimentary - yet effective - psychoanalytical underpinning, and boasts a dreamlike staging, besides a conscious use of the soundtrack - and music in general - as an element that triggers fear and acts as an indirect protagonist of the story. Incidentally, note how the film's merits are the same that many commentators point out regarding "Deep Red" ('75), in which Argento seems to delve deeper into and improve upon some of Crispino's happiest intuitions.

The film tells of an archaeological expedition at some Etruscan sites in upper Umbria, near Spoleto(?), and the discovery of an underground tomb with depictions of an Etruscan god to whom sacrifices of couples making love were offered. However, someone begins to kill, near the archaeological site and around Spoleto, a series of amorous couples, following a strange ritual of dressing the victims, inspired by the god - someone doubts - inspired by the god, reincarnated in the murderer. The head of the archaeological expedition is initially suspected of being the killer, then increasingly involved in the affair, as the victims are variously linked to the archaeological expedition and the new family of his ex-wife, composed of a strange Greek conductor and his followers. The spiral of violence will have a tragic conclusion when the past finally comes to light.

Overestimated by some and counted among the masterpieces of the genre, Crispino's film is particularly interesting, from an expressive point of view, for the extreme violence of the murders and for the fact that, unusually, many of them take place in broad daylight and in entirely unusual contexts for giallo/thriller cinema (Argento, in "Tenebre", would take note).

Without revealing too much of the film's outcomes, it's also significant to note the close relationship between the murderer's action and the victims' sexual activity, which, according to some, would even relate this film (or, rather, the idea behind it) to the crime typology of the Monster of Florence, obviously according to minority theses relating to those bloody events and mostly fanciful. Nevertheless, it all gives the film an unsettling veneer.

The flaws of the work are those often found in low-budget films: a certain hastiness in execution, the use of actors who are not always believable in their roles (with excessive use of the current belle), some too many inconsistencies in the plot - especially regarding the connection between the murderer's action and the depictions of the Etruscan god - and slowdowns in the middle phase of the film, which risk causing the story to lose its thread, equally diminishing the tension.

In the plot inconsistencies, we might, at a stretch, see an implicit sign of the ambiguity of the story told and the presence of actual supernatural elements in the murderer's action, although such conjecture proves too much and ends up justifying what, ultimately, seem like real plot holes.

In summary, a more than good film, definitely recommended to lovers of the Italian giallo and, in any case, to those who wish to have a full understanding of the past of our cinema, alas, unrepeatable even in these subgenres.